Service providers, such as electricians, plumbers, heating/cooling contractors who provide installation and repair services for commercial and/or residential customers, are tasked with diagnosing problems raised by their customers, initiating the repair service, completing the service, and completing the financial transaction associated with the service. One difficulty that these service providers have is the ability to efficiently estimate costs for parts and repair services. The typical way of performing cost estimations is a highly manual endeavor, although certain individual contractors or their employers may have standard repair services with flat rate charges. Estimating the cost of parts, which are subject to price variability levied by the distributors that contractors use, adds further complexity to the process. As a result of existing cost estimation systems being manual, inefficiencies naturally occur, and much time and effort is wasted in generating a work order with repair service and parts fee estimates, and then closing out a transaction with a customer.
It would be desirable, therefore, to develop a device and method that allows a service provider to efficiently generate a work order in the field, in real time, using routinely updated parts and service fees, present the work order to the customer for immediate approval, initiate and complete the agreed upon service, and optionally complete payment transactions for services rendered. Increased efficiencies on the transactional side of these services will allow for decreased time allocation to the transaction and, therefore, increased profitability. Further, through the use of flat-rate pricing and automated, scaled parts markup during work-order generation, increased profitability can be achieved.
The present invention is directed to overcoming these and other deficiencies in the art.